


Wish No More; My Life You Can Take

by CommanderRoastedWolf



Series: Birds of a Feather [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Heroes Never Die, it's not actually as bad as y'all think, it's sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7136780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderRoastedWolf/pseuds/CommanderRoastedWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We can't always be heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> It's fucking sad woo! Enjoy the angst!

Visor cracked, Fareeha speeds across the courtyard, her voice screaming out the only name that matters. The world is aflame, the choking stench of burning rubber and flesh and wood suffocating her as she blasts through the fire and into the building. She feels debris pattering against her head like rain, the heat knocking the breath out of her, an environmental warning blaring in her helmet as she surges forward through the wreckage.

She thinks she’s still screaming.

Her limbs whir and creak as she grasps a fallen beam and heaves it aside, slipping under it and charging for the staircase. Distantly she can hear the rest of the team shouting her name, but she doesn’t listen. She can’t listen under the mad thunder of her heart, or the potent cocktail of fear and panic rising up her throat like bile, burning at the back of her throat as tears mix with smoke.

The stairs are blocked. The wall has collapsed across them - Angela’s small red cross is blinking wildly just on the other side of the barricade. Fareeha’s mouth spreads open in a wild cry of frustration, an armoured fist slamming into the red hot metal, leaving a sizable dent. She is strong, but not strong enough to punch through a meter of debris.

“Angela!” She yells, breath catching as smoke billows up to her. She coughs so hard her chest aches, or that might be the gasped sobs she can’t seem to stop. _“Angela!”_

“Fareeha!”

There’s a gap in the blockade. Fareeha falls to her knees, staring through the tiny hole, coming face to face with the smoke stained face of her lover. Angela looks exhausted, her brilliant blue eyes weary in a way Fareeha has never seen before.

“Fareeha, go!” Angela shouts above the roar of the flames. Fareeha shakes her head, spluttering as the smoke thickens.

“I’m not leaving you! We can get you out!”

Dread sinks its claws deep into her mind when Angela shakes her head. Her expression is resigned, her usually perfect hair a mess atop her head. She’s bleeding from somewhere; the red is a shock against her pale skin.

“I’m stuck. My legs are stuck.” Angela says. “You have to go. Please, Fareeha-”

“No!” Grabbed by a wild, sickening urge, Fareeha shoves her fingers under the slab of metal blocking her way, struggling to contain her coughs as she heaves and grunts and cries, trying to lift the steel up to get to Angela. It’s all that matters - the only thing she ever cared about. She can’t fail. She will not fail again.

Her body gives up. She feels the metal sag to the ground, and she lets out another howl, cursing herself, Allah, cursing the sky and the smoke and the fire as it blazes around them - an image of hell she never thought she’d see.

She returns to the hole, staring at Angela’s face. Angela reaches to her with one thin hand, her glove torn open to reveal bloody fingers. Fareeha reaches for her, tangling their fingers together as she feels her legs slump beneath her. Angela’s grip is weak, and grows weaker as the minutes pass. Fareeha’s suit is screeching warnings at her, the temperature rising to unbearable levels, her throat raw with her coughing and the snatches of breath she takes.

Someone grabs her around the shoulders, hauling her away from the hole. She struggles weakly, shouting mindlessly, thrashing against the strong grip. Every fibre of her being is telling her to stay, to die beside her Angela. Angela is watching her, a small smile blessing her face one final time, her lips moving slowly. Even if she can’t hear what Angela is saying, she knows the words. She has sang them a thousand times, cried them, roared them.

 _Heroes never die_.

Soldier: 76 pulls her out just in time. The building collapses on itself like a drunk falling down a flight of stairs. She keeps screaming until she can’t breathe, her whole body burning, her ribs cracking and shuddering with every wild exhale. Someone else grabs her, trying to contain her as she thrashes like some animal, Angela’s eyes branded into her mind until she feels she is going mad.

The darkness comes for her like a blessing. She falls into it, drowning.


	2. A Lament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heroes never die. Do they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2!

“Let her rest. She needs it.”

“You’re fuckin’ joking. She’s been out’ve it for like two days. She needs to wake up, bloody hell.”

“Lena. Trust me. She’s better where she is.”

“You’re a fuckin’ bellend, mate. She needs to face reality.”

The voices are dull to her. She recognises them, but none of them are what she is searching for. She is in the dark. The deep dark where it is easier to fall into it than to find the surface. There is no light, no hope. There is no path, and no duty she knows. She is lost - lost and aching to find the way.

She doesn’t even know where she is. Everything hurts, inside and out - her guts, her muscles, her bones. Even her teeth are hurting. Every beat of her heart is an agony, matched only by the pain of every breath.

_Heroes never die._

It’s a lie. Heroes die all the time.

She isn’t a hero. She couldn’t even protect _her_. She couldn’t even protect the only thing in the world that was worth protecting. Her shining light, her brilliance, her beauty, her intelligence - gone, lost, to be forgotten in the darkness that took her.

“She has to know.”

“She isn’t strong enough to deal with it, Lena. Stop this.”

“I’m not going to fucking stop, Winston! So get out of my way!”

The voices are louder. They are so far away, hidden in the gloom, but she follows them, slowly but surely becoming aware of herself. She is on something soft, something that smells like her, and the air is cool and sterile. She misses the way she smelt - the cool mint of her toothpaste, and the sweetness of her sweat and the creams she anointed herself with every night, to drive away the dryness of the skin on her hands. Her hands had been so soft. So soft and strong, long fingers giving life and health to all she touched.

Fareeha had always loved Angela’s hands. When they’d made love, or sat together watching the sun and the sky together, they had held hands. Small, thin fingers cradled in the rough calluses, dark and light together. Both a force of good. Both bringing justice for the innocent. Protecting and helping and caring together and for each other.

She is falling again. Drowning. Except she doesn’t gasp for air. There is no surface to break, no shore to beach herself on. Angela had been both - she had been the sky, and the sun, and the earth beneath her feet. She had been so noble. So pure and gentle and good and Fareeha loves her with every fibre of her being.

_Heroes never die._

“Fareeha, wake up!”

Someone shakes her shoulder. She resists, tumbling away from the voices. Back to her memories of blinding light and good, the purity of love. The love between her and an angel of life.

“Fareeha, for fuck’s sakes, Mercy’s not dead!”

Not dead. Impossible. She saw the building collapse, felt the gut wrenching despair as Angela’s symbol disappeared off her visor. _Not dead?_

_Heroes never die._

She surges upwards, bursting out of the dark and into the light, opening her eyes to see Lena leaning over her. The woman is still shaking her shoulder, eyes searching hers, looking for something that might not be there. Winston is at her side, his huge hand resting idly on the bed beside her, his glasses reflecting the medbay lights.

 _“Where?”_ She grunts out, sitting up with some difficulty. Her body screams in protest, but she ignores it, glancing down carelessly at the IV in her arm. She almost rips it out, but the ghost of a voice stops her.

_I hate it when people do that. It’s so careless._

_You hate carelessness, no?_

_Carelessness costs lives, mein Liebling._

“Angela’s being held in the burn unit at the hospital.” Lena rattles off briskly. “She’s in a coma. She’s going to be all right.”

“I need to see her.” Fareeha doesn’t recognise her own voice. It is harsh and hard, rusty with disuse and grief. No doubt she did some damage with the way she had been screaming like a woman possessed.

Lena glances at Winston, who clears his throat and speaks in what is clearly supposed to be a soothing tone, “That would not be wise, Fareeha. You are still recovering from your burns.”

“I need to see her.”

Winston doesn’t understand. He never could understand. He doesn’t love a goddess of the morning. She glares at the pair of them expectantly, ignoring the tightness of the bindings covering her arms and legs, no doubt where the suit burnt into her flesh. Winston and Lena share a look, then nod.

They help her dress, giving her as much privacy as they can while helping her into loose clothing and settling her into a wheelchair when her legs shake under her. Lena wheels her out of the sweeping doors, chattering about taxies and money and things that don’t even matter. Fareeha stares at the ground, trying to understand, trying to clear her foggy mind and remember. The building. It had collapsed - Angela had been stuck, she said she had been stuck, her legs trapped beneath the wall on the stairs.

They get her into a transport. Lena is still nattering on, even as they leave Winston behind. He watches them go, his yellow eyes mournful as the taxi pulls away from the curb and speeds away. Fareeha doesn’t listen to Lena, lost in memories, and eventually silence falls between them, marked only by the rumble roar of the engine and the sound of the city around them - so removed, so distant, as though part of another world.

Fareeha thinks she passes out briefly, because suddenly they are rattling along a bright white corridor, a doctor keeping pace with Lena’s long strides, telling them not to enter. Lena ignores him entirely, using the feet of Fareeha’s wheelchair to crash through a door, and then another, until they are in a dim, high room lit only by dull red lights which line the walls and floor.

The fallen angel is in the nearest bed.

Lena pushes Fareeha towards her beside, squeezing Fareeha’s shoulder before turning around to deal with the doctor, who is still bleating pathetically. Angela doesn’t look herself. She is covered head to foot in white bandages - even her hands are hidden from view, the steady monotony of the heart monitor comforting beyond all reckoning.

_Heroes never die._

Fareeha feels her eyes burn, relief crashing over her, sending her slumping forward onto the bed, lips spread open in a silent sob.

A hand rubs her back. Lena has returned, her voice soft and gentle as she pats and soothes her, easing each painful cry out of her broken body. Angela slumbers on, swathed in cloth; living, breathing. Alive. Impossibly, fantastically alive.


End file.
